We ate Paczki for Fat Thursday when we lived in Poland, but this is the first year that I’ve made my own. Like everything else, homemade is always better.
If I’m perfectly honest, I couldn’t understand the fuss about store-bought Paczki. It’s probably because I was, based on the appearance, expecting an American doughnut.
I found the pastry itself too dense and bread-y and the jam too scant. Now that I’ve had homemade, I know that all of you who have enjoyed mama’s or babcia’s paczki were holding out on me!
Fat Tuesday vs. Fat Thursday
Did you think I made a mistake above when I said Fat Thursday? While in the United States and many other countries, we mark the day before Ash Wednesday as Fat Tuesday, a day to us up the oil in the house, so traditonal foods for this day are fried, before we start the penetential time of Lent and six weeks of plain simple foods.
In Poland, the day to eat fried treats in preparation for Lent is the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, and on Fat Thursday, Poles will eat 100 million paczki!
It’s not just a matter of tradition, good luck is involved! According to culture.pl, a Polish proverb proclaims that
those who don’t eat a stack of pączki on Fat Thursday will have an empty barn and their field destroyed by mice.
Homemade Paczki
My own Paczki? The outside is crisp; the dough is rich and delicate, like an orange scented brioche.
The jam, in my case orange marmalade, really is just an accent. As I said, homemade is always better! So with the last week of Karnawal approaching, let me urge you to make your own paczki for Fat Thursday (or Tuesday).
Although I’ve doubled the flour used, I’ve used the recipe from Polish Cookery, the translation of Uniwersalna Ksiazka Kucharska (the Universal Cookbook, published in the early 1900s) by Marja Ochorowica-Monatowa, which bills itself as Poland’s best-selling cookbook adapted for American kitchens.
(You can purchase it via Amazon links on this page. I participate in in the Amazon Associates program, so purchases via Amazon links on my website generate a small commmission for me.)
This was the first of my many Polish cookbooks. It’s translated and adapted by Jean Karsavina, originally published in 1958. I have to agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Karsavina’s remarks in the preface:
Poland, like France, is a country where people really know food. One can stop at a peasant home in the country, a wayside inn, a modest restaurant in a working-class neighborhood, and be served a meal with remembering. Good food is tradition. Polish hospitality is legendary.
Gone from the original book in Polish are the recipes for Roast Boar’s Head and Turkey Garnished with Two Dozen Roast Field Thrushes, and the original author’s assertion that the book’s purpose was to “give brides a knowledge of how cooking is done, so that they may supervise the servants properly.”
This was essential, Ms. Montowa says because, “everyone knows how apt servants are to cheat, especially if the lady of the house makes no attempt to interest herself in planning menus or fails to check bills and accounts. If,” she tells us, “there is time on one’s schedule for singing lessons, piano practice, water coloring, and fine embroidery, surely there is also a half-hours each day which can be made available for one’s housewifely duties. . .”
It’s a long way from my great-grandmother who was raising 10 children, homesteading with her cattle-ranching husband in the Arizona Territory at the time. 😉
Whether you are supervising the staff or making your own pastry in homage to a pioneer ancestors, I hope you’ll give Paczki for Fat Thursday a try this year, especially if you’ve never had homemade.
Give Karnawal a good send off. My friend Klaudia tells me the nicest and most traditional jam to use it a rose jam, but you can certainly use other fruit jams or marmalade.
Angel Wings are another favorite fried food for Fat Thursday.
Smacznego!
Lois
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A brioche-like, jam filled pastry eaten to mark the last week before Lent
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour
- 2 cups boiling milk
- 1 packet of dry yeast
- 1/4 cup lukewarm milk
- 6 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 vanilla bean pod, split and scraped
- 2 teaspoons grated orange zest
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- flour, jam, deep fat for frying
Instructions
- Stir 1 cup flour into boiling milk
- Remove from heat and beat until smooth
- Cool
- Dissolve yeast in the 1/4 cup milk
- Add to the four mixture
- Stir and let stand half an hour
- Cream egg yolks and sugar, add vanilla and orange rind
- Stir into the dough when it begins to rise
- Add remaining flour and butter and beat until it forms a sticky dough
- Cover and let stand 45-60 minutes, until doubled in size
- Turn out on a floured board, knead just a few times
- Divide dough in half and roll to 5/8 inch thich
- Cut out circles
- Place a teaspoon of jam, the fruit only, not runny syrup, on half of the circles
- Cover with remaining circles, press edges together
- Cover and let rise again
- Fry a few at a time in deep fat, 340 -345 F for about 4 minutes, taking care not to burn the dough
- Drain and serve rolled in powdered sugar, granulated sugar, or glaze
Notes
This cookbook layers the jam between two cutouts. If you have a long pastry tip, you could also pipe jam into paczki after frying, or slice your plain paczki and filled with whipped cream and berries.
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Much to my surprise a supermarket in Lincoln Nebraska does a good job of making pączki. My friend always gets them when I visit there.
In Lincoln, Nebrask?!! How thoughtful of your friend!
These sound far better than the PA Dutch version of fastnachts we experienced in Eastern Pennsylvania on Fat Tuesday.
Pat, you are too kind. I was happily surprised with how well they turned out. And this is after I put the lot in the fridge overnight. I didn’t give myself enough time, and they were ready to fry yesterday just as we were heading out to dinner, but no harm was done. The dough recovered nicely!
Thank you for the recipe. I can’t wait to try them. I was always in the kitchen with my Babci. Watching her cook was inspiring. However, like many before she too her recipes with her when she passed. We did try one time to write down what she did but it was difficult because like any good cook, she rarely measured anything. Her paczki seemed to be much fluffier than the ones pictured but she did fill after cooking. Do you think these are a bit flatter because of adding the jam before cooking?
Hi Cheri, it can be so hard to recreate an unwritten recipe. It took multiple tries to get close to my grandmother’s vinegar rolls.
I think filling after frying would make for fluffier paczki. Mine might have been fluffier if I’d been able to fry immediately after the rise. They had to go in the fridge over night.
Thank you for sharing the ones you made with us. They were delicious. It’s a perfect breakfast. Like a really good donut, without being too sweet.
★★★★★
Not too sweet; can we call paczki health food?
Maybe non-traditional ones! Traditional fried pączki are certainly not! One can have up to 500 calories! But honestly… some are so delicious! really worth it <3
★★★★★
I guess that’s why we don’t eat them everyday!
I have never heard of these – nor Fat Thursday! I don’t think either side of my family celebrated – just Fat Tuesday. I wish we had, because these look wonderful!
It seems like everyone observes Lent in Poland, so why not get in a full
week of celebrating!
From a practicing Polish Catholic, I must gently correct you: it is “Fat TUESday”, not “Thursday.”
The tradition comes from Ash Wednesday, when Catholics begin the season of Lent. A day of fasting is required, and in the past (and still today in some cultures) the fasting not only includes abstinence from meat, but also dairy products. Households would use recipes like doughnuts with lots of eggs, to get rid of all the dairy *before* Ash Wednesday…hence, Tuesday was the day to make and eat eggy-ladden recipes.
Looking forward to Pacski Day!
Ah, I stand corrected by my son: the Thursday before Ash Wednesday is “Fat Thursday”, although here in America they celebrate Paczki Day on Fat Tuesday, along with other cultures’ traditions.
Yes, in PL it started a full week before Lent. It was news to me when I arrived in Poznań.
Irine, thank you for offering the most gentle correction.